Covering Up

This picture taken on August 16, 2012 shows Chinese beachgoers wearing body suits and protective head masks, dubbed "face-kinis" by Chinese netizens, on a crowded public beach in Qingdao, northeast China's Shandong province.

It isn’t that Chinese bathers fear being recognized: it’s that they don’t want to get tan. Fair skin is highly valued in China and other parts of Asia — unlike, say, New Jersey— as a sign of beauty, wealth and status. Dark, sun-bronzed skin is for those who spend their time outdoors doing menial labor, while lighter skin is the sign of an indoor life of leisure. “A woman should always have fair skin,” one face-kini enthusiast told the New York Times. “Otherwise people will think you’re a peasant.”